Series 2 109 Update – It’s Close

Painted, plumbed, wired, hydraulics bled and working…….looks like a truck!

The arduous “vent flap seal” job is complete……..now just have to leave them closed up for the next three months.

The old 2.25 is ready to fire and time. Fluids have been added and everything stayed in………can’t wait to hear this one finally burning petrol again.

Finishing the riveting of the body cappings and bed strips, and trying desperately to not scratch the fresh paint!

Glad that’s over…….now just add lights and a 3/4 hoop-set, good to go.

Seat box assembly is next. Another job that seems like it should take twenty minutes, but turns into an hours long project. Fifty plus nut’s, bolts, screws, rivets, and one captive in the back corner………..minimum four hands to install, and DO NOT scratch the paint.

Original hardware going back into the seat box captives………pretty cool to have all that old hardware re-plated and looking like new again.

Next up, fire the motor, when I’m happy with it running properly, floors go in, pick-up cab goes on, doors bolted in place, front wings installed, drop the hood in place and wait for some good weather take a drive……which may be a while up here in northern Vermont!

Hi Colin, thanks very much. This one will most likely go when finished. I have the twin to it, Ike’s old shop truck, and really can’t just keep stacking these things up. I’ve had a few folks inquire about it so it may go that way, BAT is always an option. Either way, it will be a tough one to part with…….this was a very lucky find that will be tough to duplicate.

Sweet Jesus you do some incredible work! I have a 67 109″ NADA wagon that I restored in 01. I did a 66 88″ frame off restoration in 04 that I later sold, but hated to see it go. Pulling off all that trim, and putting it back on (properly) after re-galving takes some serious hours! My paint skills are decent, but yours are phenomenal! By the way, what color blue is that? Stunning color!
I generally lean toward proper restoration, but replating all the bolts, that’s a little much even for me, especially when the fine thread equivalents are still made.
Fixing to start a 66 109” pickup resto-mod. I have decided that I want this one to have a little more power than stock, having lived with the 2.25l before. Also decided that I might as well upgrade to a 5-spd R380 transmission. I want to be able to drive it everyday, easily at highway speed.

Hi John,
Thanks very much for the compliments. Sounds like you have the same “Rover addiction” that I do. The blue is a 70’s BMW color called Riviera Blue, very close to the Rover RAF Blue of the era. Getting RAF paint codes from England that would match up to US suppliers proved impossible, and getting someone over there to spray a panel and ship to me also hit a wall. The BMW Riviera is stunning and a rare color that actually gets better in direct sunlight………it gets a bit of a milky hue to it. The hardware thing……I was obviously the first person to disassemble this truck, it had zero rust issues, and all of the original hardware was coming out with simple hand tools. It would have been easy to scrap it all and replace with new, but aside from lots of blue paint, there was nothing wrong with the original stuff, so I took the time to clean it up and plate it. Using a Series 2 parts manual I was able to separate everything once back from the platers and get most of it right back where it started, definitely worth the extra effort in the end. Another plus on a Series 2 is that these older trucks have a lot of captive nuts (bulkhead, seat box, frame check straps), none of these had to be re-threaded, the re-plated stuff went right back home.
Thanks again,
Colby

Looking forward to the next update. I got a number of fasteners re-plated for my current 88″ rebuild, but probably wouldn’t have thought about it had I not seen your posts, so thanks. Makes general replacement bolts seem a bit inadequate!

Thanks and you’re welcome, glad this helped. This was my first time at re-plating, and except for the amount of labor involved in prep work, in the end final assembly of the truck was sped up by having all of the correct hardware at hand. The trick is finding trucks that have not had all of the old stuff removed and discarded already. Best of luck with the rebuild.
Colby